Mobile-specific criteria announced by the Acceptable Ads Committee

Over the course of nearly a year, the Acceptable Ads Committee (AAC) commissioned a study on user experience and mobile ads (including 2000 ad-blocking users). The results were then put forward to all members of the committee to fully review.

Only then did the committee publish the draft criteria. There was a feedback round lasting for a month, and on July 31 the mobile-specific Acceptable Ads criteria were released.

What is the Acceptable Ads Committee?

The AAC is an independent group of representatives from across the digital advertising spectrum – (user experience) researchers, advertisers and agencies, technologists and internet user representatives are all on the board – organized as a nonprofit.

Their job is to research and establish the criteria that we (and others) use for Acceptable Ads.

Moving forward

In March 2017, eyeo officially stepped back from the Acceptable Ads programme, and the Acceptable Ads programme became independent with the AAC taking over. Since then, the AAC has been working hard to research, understand and define just exactly which ads are acceptable on mobile.

The mobile-specific Acceptable Ads criteria is the first release from the independent AAC, and it’s wonderful that they have taken all sides into account and spent a long time researching and analyzing all data and feedback before reaching their decisions.

This is exactly why the AAC was set up in the first place – to allow internet users and industry representatives to determine the best way to work together for the future of the web.

New standards

Now that the mobile-specific criteria have been published, we have a set of guidelines that we can incorporate into our Acceptable Ads standard. This means that very soon we will begin working with companies to provide the Acceptable Ads experience on mobile as well as desktop.